Pe'ah 016

8:
Our mishnah distinguishes between four kinds of walkway: a private road, a public road, a public path, and a private path that is available in both the dry and the rainy seasons. In his commentary on our mishnah Rambam defines these walkways by measurement:

1. a public road is at least 16 cubits wide – approximately 8 metres;
2. a private road is only 4 cubits wide – about 2 metres;
3. a private path is a walkway that is less than 2 metres wide.

However, when he comes to write his great halakhic code, Mishneh Torah, Rambam contradicts himself and writes that a private road can be as little as two and one half cubits wide – just 125 centimetres (perhaps 4 feet in anglo-saxon measurement). (Here he was almost certainly influenced by a comment in the Gemara [Bava Batra 100a] where a width of 4 cubits for a private pathway is modified to "the width needed to let a donkey pass with his load", which is redefined as two and one half cubits.)

Rambam's great antagonist, Rabbi Avraham ben-David of Posquières, rejects all these measurements as being irrelevant. He claims that in the context of our mishnah 'private' and 'public' simply refer to a kind of ownership: a 'path' is a walkway in and between fields which is intended only for the use of those working the land, whereas a 'road' affords the general public a recognised way of crossing land that had been ploughed or sown. The Gemara [Bava Kamma 81a] mentions 'ten conditions' upon which Joshua allocated land to the tribes, one of which was the right of public thoroughfare through privately owned land, provided the traveller kept to the paths.

9:
All paths and roads, of course, were just dirt tracks. The more a track was used the less likely it was that it would be obliterated during the rainy season. According to our present mishnah, if a track has been washed away by the rains and has not been delineated afresh the fact that it was once there does not constitute a boundary between two fields.

The food and oil uses of much of the produce subject to Pe'ah are obvious, but I wonder about the dye-producing sumac berries. Dye would seem to have been a luxury item in Mishnaic times – certainly not a necessity of life (except for the techeilet used in dyeing the tzitzit). I wonder what Pe'ah collectors of sumac fruit did with it? Did they perhaps extract and sell the dye?

The Gemara [Berakhot 35b] suggests that the work of the righteous is done for them by others. Today I must be at least a little righteous since Judith May provides Jordan with his answer:

Sumac berries, dried and ground to a powder, are used as a spice in the Middle East to this day. Sumac thus qualifies as food.

In Pe'ah 012 I wrote: Pe'ah produce is exempt from tithes. This is quite logical since it would not be reasonable to allocate produce to the poor and needy and then to deprive them of ten percent of it as tithes to be given to the priests and Levites… The poor, assuming ownership of this abandoned produce, would not be required to give tithes from it even though it is not strictly Pe'ah, and this right too extends until the produce has been loaded into a pile for storage; from that point on it is liable to tithes.

Nehama Barbiru writes:

When the poor take from the produce isn't that making piles in a way? So do the poor give tithes or not, and at what stage?

I respond:

The making of piles to which our mishnah refers is only something that is done by the farmer. The amount of produce that the poor would be able to harvest would not be sufficient to make into a pile and they probably carried their spoil home in their arms or in a sack. You must imagine the pile to be something like a haystack or rick.

Nehama also asks:

If the produce is Hefker [ownerless] why would it be loaded into a pile and by whom? Again if it is by the poor, do they give tithes?

I respond:

I am guilty here of misleading through a desire to be brief. The generous farmer has the right to declare his produce (or part of it) as being ownerless so that the poor may legitimately take it for themselves in addition to Pe'ah. Such ownerless produce is not subject to tithes; however this exemption from tithing extends only until the farmer stores this produce in a pile. From that moment on it is subject to tithing.

Nehama also asks another question:

If Hekdesh actually belongs to the Bet Mikdash why should there be any tithes giving? Also when giving tithes out of what amount is it calculated the whole produce or the produce minus the Hekdesh/Hefker/Pe'ah?

I respond:

As long as the produce is Hekdesh (owned by the Bet Mikdash) it is not subject to tithes. If the Hekdesh is 'redeemed' (exchanged for a sum of money) it becomes subject to tithing once again. When produce is subject to tithes it is the whole of that produce that must be tithed – ten percent of the produce.